To See With the Touch of Death
by Wednesday Grimm
Summary: Geneva Slaine is a Seer, and she has a son...one, which she is quite sure, is not human. Follow the life of Logan Slaine, friend, caregiver, outsider — and a child of Death.
1. Prologue

**A/N I wanted to do an OC for a while...this isn't AU. The main characters from the books are going to be in here.**

Prologue**  
**

Geneva Slaine could feel something was very wrong the moment she stepped out of her car to pick up her son from his morning day care.

Perhaps it was the chill in the air, signifying the turn from fall to winter. Perhaps it was the cold she had picked up a few days ago during one of her many lectures at the city conference center. However, she highly doubted it—there was a certain feeling she could not shake off, and it had something to do with her son.

Given his history, it was not a comforting thought.

Geneva strolled briskly into the low, heavily structured brick building, fear in her eyes. When she reached Logan's classroom, her fears were confirmed: he was sitting on a pile of cushions in a corner, unmoving, his eyes hidden by his long black hair.

"Oh, no," she murmured, and rushed to him, sinking to her knees beside him. "Logan, baby..."

The boy's head rose a fraction of an inch.

"Mommy?"

"Yes, sweetheart? What happened, baby?" Logan's small body shifted.

"I don't feel so good."

"What do you mean, sweetie?"

"I don't feel good." This came as a hoarse whisper. Looking carefully at her son, she could see he was shaking. His skin was pale, with an unhealthy blue sheen, when she came near, he trembled.

"Did...other kids bully you?" This itself was a false hope.

The little boy shook his head. Geneva's heart sank. She had hoped it would not come to this.

"Did something happen?" she whispered. "Did something happen that wasn't supposed to happen?"

Logan nodded. Terror entered Geneva's frightened eyes.

"What?" she breathed, hardly daring to listen for the answer.

"Pictures," the little boy whispered. "Bad pictures. I see them in my head.

Horror clenched Geneva's heart as she reached for her son's hand.

"Pictures?" she said softly. "What..."

"NO!" Logan suddenly jumped back, bumping hard into the bookshelf behind him. "Don't touch!"

Geneva gasped as she saw her son's eyes. They were haunted..._black._

Black.

The mark of a Child of Death.


	2. In Five Years

Dr. Bernard Bronson walked quietly down the hall of the psychiatric ward of Grace Hospital for the Mentally Impaired, refering to his clipboard and muttering to himself. This was his last checkup before his shift was over, and he was slightly impatient. One of his earlier schizophreniac patients had managed to blacken his left eye, and as a result, his mood wasn't at its best—not that it was very good to begin with, with his wife nagging him at home about their anniversary and his son's less-than-perfect performance recently in his SAT's. All in all, Bronson would just be glad to finish this checkup and get it over with, then perhaps go out for a beer to cool down his jumping nerves.

_Yes, a beer will do_,he thought, reaching the designated door for his next patient. Nothing better than alcohol to cure stress, except perhaps a nice massage, but his wife wouldn't approve. Sighing, he turned to his clipboard. There was no freedom in the world anymore.

"Patient: Young, male." he muttered, hand on the doorknob. "Diagnosis: Severe autism..."

He didn't bother reading the rest. Bronson had learned early in his career that bursting into a patient's room without reading the diagnosis was a dangerous thing to do, especially if they had a violent form of mental illness. His black eye was somewhat proof of that. However, autism wasn't exactly violent... if the patient was approached correctly, there shouldn't be trouble.

Tucking his clipboard to his side, the doctor entered the room.

The room was pitch-black, with moonlight streaming gently through the blinds in the corner. The small bed was tucked beside the window, exactly where he expected it to be, and in it a small form huddled in a ball, curled in on itself in a fetal position. Whoever the patient was, he was very young...no more than ten. Sighing, Bronson took out his stethoscope. It was saddening how such young people could enter a world of pain.

He prepared his instruments on the exam table by the door, taking care not to wake the young patient. Suddenly his hurry to leave seemed to be forgotten. Bronson had always had a soft spot for children, without ever quite knowing why—even after his obnoxious son was born he still enjoyed the company of the neighbour's children playing on the sidewalk in front of his home.

Finishing the sterilizing, Bronson turned back to the boy. Cautiously, he approached...and after a few steps, stumbled back in shock.

What he had assumed to be the sleeping form of the boy was actually the blankets and sheets, ripped from the bed and rolled up like a carpet. The actual patient was sitting at the head of the bed, with his eyes previously closed. But now, with them open, Bronson could only stare in shock and horror, mouth agape, not daring to move any closer...

ooooooooooooooo

The phone rang.

Marissa opened her eyes clumsily, struggling to sit up on her bed of mangled sheets and brown-stained mattress. She had had a long night. Her shift at the hospital had ended late, and the coffee machine had broken. Without her usual dose of caffeine, she was moody, irritable, and damn, _so _tired—it didn't help that she had to have the early shift for the next day, either.

Her eyes, with difficulty, found her phone under the scattered mess of her bedside cabinet, and she flicked it on before holding it up to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Ms. Slaine?" Marissa blinked. No one knew she had once been called Geneva Slaine. That was, no one except—

"What happened?" There was fear in her voice.

"There has been a security breakdown. Patient 1618—that would be, Logan Slaine—has escaped from our institution." There was no emotion at all in the voice.

"Escaped? But—" Marissa found herself gasping for air. "I was assured you would keep him safe. From harming himself and...others. He—he cannot touch other people, you see—"

"In our records, he is diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome." The voice was cold and questioning.

"He—this is different." Marissa felt like she was grasping at air. "He has a sickness, you see, if he touches others, he sees...things, and—"

"Hallucinations?"

"No! It is...genetic." That was at least half-true. "Um, visions, of a sort. That is the reason I institutionalized him—he's not safe to himself—"

"We shall find him, then." There was a click, and the line went dead.

Marissa felt shaken. She couldn't let anything happen to her son. She couldn't—he was too young, too important, too powerful.

There was one more thing she had to think about, though. Just before the line was cut, the person on the line from the hospital, the voice in the phone, had changed. The emotionlessness had changed to something darker, more sinister, and familiar.

She was afraid that her past had caught up with her.

oooooooooooooooo

Logan ran, and he didn't look back.

He was stumbling in the darkness, in his loose hospital gown, the frigid night air stinging in his lungs. His breath made puffs of white appear in front of him. The doctor he had left in his room had passed out—fallen into the coma brought on by his touch. However, Logan was by no means assured that the man had not already woken up by now. His best chance of escaping was in the hours of darkness, when sleep would slow the best of the handlers. He was also more comfortable at night. There was less of a chance of people seeing him, less of a chance that a eleven-year-old boy would be stopped and questioned for being on his own.

At least he knew where he was. Seneca, a small community just north of Pennsylvania. He knew where he needed to go, too—New York City, which he could _not _just travel to, on foot, in a hospital gown, a thin sweater, and some borrowed sneakers from the Children's Ward. He needed supplies, and a weapon. Yes—definitely a weapon. He couldn't repeat his recent brush with death on the side alley from the drug pusher looking for a victim.

His breath rattled as he slowed, approaching the developments in the outskirts of the town. The Shawshrink Mental Hospital (1) was just outside the town, which made it difficult for patients to get away. The surroundings were just fields leading from nowhere to nowhere. He had some more hope here, where there were inhabitants, so that there was a chance that he could steal some money and clothes as well as some food and maybe some sort of knife or wrench.

Coming close to the first houses, Logan stumbled into shadow. He couldn't be seen—even if most of the people in the houses were asleep, there could always be a night owl on the lookout. He picked a house at random, and slid into its backyard. Eyeing the jutting patio and small balcony, Logan began scaling a small maple growing next to the house. From the top, he jumped onto the roof of the covered patio, and, from there, hoisted himself onto the balcony.

In the end, it turned out to be surprisingly easy. The house was quite empty, except for grunting snores coming out of the master bedroom, and Logan wasn't about to find out who was in there. The family must have, or once had, a child, because there were some clothes in the smallest bedroom at the end of the hall, and though they were a bit big, he felt pleased. He also found an old denim backpack, whick he stuffed more clothes into, and after scrunging the kitchen, some Spam and enough bread to make the bag look like a laundry duffel.

Finally, Logan made his way into the basement, where he found some power tools. Although he was tempted to take the chainsaw, it would be a bit abvious if he were to carry it down the street. In the end he settled with two large kitchen knives and a smaller Swiss Army knife. It never hurt to be prepared, and he definitely needed a way to defend himself where he was going.

Taking one last look around the place, he prepared to leave.

Then he remembered something.

Logan made his way past the living room, the parlour, the kitchen, to what was obviously a study. Silently, he rummaged through the drawers, gently pawing through pens, papers, and odd bits and pieces, making sure to leave all where he left it. He was suddenly very glad of the surgical gloves that he had snatched from the doctor's cart during his daring escape at the hospital. Finally, he found what he was looking for. An envelope, of cash, for about a hundred and twenty dollars.

People, fortunately, were very predictable, particularly if they lived in a grand house like this.

Peeling off the gloves, Logan shoved them in his backpack, and returned to his balcony. Jumping off to the ground, he whispered a silent thank-you to the people of the house.

New York, here I come, he thought, and disappeared into the night.

**A/N**

(1) Tribute to 'The Shawshank Redemption". If you haven't already, watch it. Amazing movie—it made me cry.

All right, this chapter was a bit weird, but I needed the readers to get more familliar with the characters. Logan _is _kind of too mature for his age—he _is _eleven—but his 'gift' has shown him some horrible things that no child should see. You will find out more in later chapters.


End file.
